



ORATION. 



AN 



OEATIOJNT 



DELIVERED AT 



FAYETTEVIUE, ARKANSAS, 



Beig.-Gen. Albert w:' Bishop, 



ADJUTANT-GENERAL OF THE 8TA1 



JULY 4, 1865. 



^•r— .'. .♦. •. • ,• 



NEW YORK : 
BAKER <fe GODWIN, PRINTERS, 

PRINTING-HOUSE SQUARE, OPP. CITY HALL. 

1865. 



Fatetteville, Aek., July 4, 1865. 
Brig.- Gen. A. W. Bishop, A. G. State of Arkansas, — 

General : In accordance with the resolution unanimously adopted by 
the very large and spirited meeting held to-day, and adding our own im- 
pression that publication of your address will accomj)lish much good, we 
would earnestly solicit a copy for the public. 
We remain, 

"With high consideration and respect. 

Your obedient servants, 
ELIAS HAEKELL, ~ 

Chairman, 

D. D. STAKK, ^ 

r^„^^ ^^^^^^ Y Committee. 

THOS. BROOKS, 

J. H. VAN HOOSE, 

Secretaries, 



St. Louis, Mo., July 10, 1865. 

Messrs. Elias Harrell, D. D. Stark, Thos. Brooks, and J. H. Van 
HoosE, Committee, — 
Gentlemen : I am in receipt of your favor requesting, for publication, 
a copy of the address delivered by me at Fayetteville, Arkansas, on the 4th 
inst. To this request I cheerfully respond, and in the hope that such 
publication may not be unproductive of the good which you have been 
pleased to express, the manuscript is placed at yom* disposal. 

Very respectfully, 

Your obedient servant, 

A. W. BISHOP. 



ORATION, 



At Springfield, Missouri, three years ago to-day, tliere were 
scattered through an audience assembled in one of the beautiful 
groves that then encompassed that city, a few loyal men from 
Northwestern Arkansas. 

There they could celebrate the anniversary of the natal day 
of freedom, but kere^ from whence they went, they could not, 
and sadly looking southward, they dispersed to their resting 
places, not their homes. " The Earth," however, " was not all 
bare, nor the Heavens empty." There was hope in the present 
even, and very soon, men, whom I see before me now, were 
marching hitherward to defend their rights and avenge their 
wrongs. The work proceeded slowly and wearily, but at last 
the days of rebellion have been numbered, and here, where 
earlier hours were passed, property acquired, and families reared, 
the loyal men of Northwestern Arkansas, are to-day as- 
sembled, to hallow the memory of three years of suffering, 
strife, and victory. 

In February, 1862, a Texan Ranger, of more notoriety than 
fame, burned your college, swept otherwise through Fayette- 
ville, as with the besom of destruction ; wished you all " where 
the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched," though a 
word of one syllable answered his purpose, and a month later 
fell at Pea Ridge, as black with the maledictions of this com- 
munity, as the habit he is reputed to have worn. 



6 

The war had then been raging nearly a year, and yet your 
troubles were not so great, your losses so severe, as they were 
shortly to become. In 1861, the virus of secession worked 
more mildly, at all events loyal men in Arkansas were not so 
persecuted, as when rebels of even ordinary forecast saw, that 
every man in the South, capable of bearing arms, must come to 
the rescue of the new Confederacy, to save it from a fate as 
disastrous as sudden. 

Prior to the passage of the ordinance of secession, the Union 
element in the State was very strong. There was an obvious 
disposition among the masses to still adhere to the " old Consti- 
tution." It was difficult to convince them that the North was 
disposed to be tyrannical. They had thus far enjoyed the bless- 
ings of a free Government. Every man's house was his castle, 
and there was really no foe besieging it. 

The first inaugural of our lamented late Chief Magistrate, 
mourned to-day with a soitow unequaled in prevalence and in- 
tensity, was eminently just to the South. 

The rights of States were guaranteed not only, but the 
power of the Government was pledged to their enforcement. 
There was no occasion for this gigantic rebellion. Personal 
Liberty bills may have been passed by the Legislatures of some 
of the Northern States, in disregard of a provision of the Fed- 
eral Constitution, the construction of which is generally agreed 
upon, but such action was either rescinded, or, by the people 
generally, considered unwise. 

The Central Government was true to the grand, underlying 
instrument that has withstood the buffetings of three-quarters 
of a century, and whatever moralists may urge, or philanthro- 
pists condemn, the fundamental law of a nation must continue 
to be obeyed, while it is such. Our reverence for it should not 
be shattered by every theory set afloat, and yet grievances, if 



there are any, are entitled to a calm and rational hearing, but 
judgment must not precede trial ; and so far as Slavery, natm'- 
ally suggested in this connection, is concerned, it was the most 
consummate folly in its friends to disregard the clear and em- 
phatic utterances of President Lincoln. 

A fungus upon the tree of liberty, Slavery might have sur- 
vived to a greater age, but cut off as it has been, the wound will 
speedily be healed. That which was done to save has utterly 
destroyed, and the mad enthusiasm that four years ago fired on 
Sumter, and metamorphosed Legislatures into conferences of 
traitors, has been followed by the wail of States, and the com- 
plete and final overthrow of a great and dangerous heresy. 

Circe sought to overcome Ulysses by offering him the medi- 
cated cup, and when he had drank of it, struck him with her 
wand, and bade him " go join his comrades in the sty," but his 
antidote was ready, and the fascinating enchantress was foiled. 
So likewise, have the leaders of public senthnent in the South 
held the fatal cup to the lips of their fellow-citizens, and though 
many drank and were ruined, the spell has been broken, and 
the wand of the enchantress transformed into the scourge of 
outraged law. 

Not every scheme attractive in its inception, is destined to 
final success. It was easy for Jefferson Davis to resign his seat 
in the Senate of the United States four years ago, but for him 
ultimately to avoid the consequences of his treason, will be far 
more difiicult. 

As the head of a gigantic conspiracy, full of vigorous hate, 
he was a formidable antagonist, but fleeing through Southern 
Georgia, and donning wrapper and shawl, to avoid capture, he 
dwindles into the most ludicrous insignificance. The Pro- 
visional Congress of the Confederate States, sittings at Mont- 
gomery, in February, 1861, was a dignified body, and naturally 



8 

enough gave great cause for alarm ; but its successor, closing its 
sessions at Richmond, a few months ago, under the pressure of 
loyal bayonets, and scattering Southward, as chaff blown by the 
wind, was as harmless as a dove. 

The logic of events is decisive, nor is it necessary that its 
teacliings should be the slow growth of centm*ies. A single 
Presidential temi, under our form of Government, may be 
dotted thickly with great occurrences, and so was it with the 
administrations of President Lincoln. 

The first, beginning in doubt and discouragement, the latter 
terminated tragically indeed, for him, but grand beyond com- 
parison in the magnificent triumph of a great and holy cause. 
In that triumph, fellow-citizens, our State shares, and has a 
right to share. She rebelled, indeed ; those entrusted mainly 
with the administration of her affairs were led astray by a bitter 
prejudice, and an unsoundness of doctrine, yet thousands of her 
citizens have battled manfully for the Stars and Stripes, since 
the first feeble exodi were made from Batesville to RoUa, and 
Northwestern Arkansas to Springfield. Pardon me, then, if I 
rehearse a little State and local history, with which the most, if 
not all of you, are familiar. 

On the 15th of January, 1861, Henry M. Rector, then Gov- 
ernor of the State, approved " an act to provide for a State 
Convention," the principal object of which, in the language of 
the act itself, was to " take into consideration the condition of 
political affairs, and determine what course the State of Arkan- 
sas should pursue in the present political crisis." 

On the 18th of February, 1861, the election of delegates to 
this convention was held, and, notwithstanding the perpetration 
of nmiierous frauds, and the obvious efforts of many in author- 
ity to create a public sentiment hostile to the maintenance of 



9 

the Union, a majority of these delegates were opposed to se- 
cession. 

On the 4th of March, the convention met at Little Eock, 
and after a violent session of two weeks, adjom-ned without 
accomplishing the secession of the State. Commissioners duly 
accredited, were present from Georgia and South Carolina, 
bringing with them as the weapons of their diplomatic warfare, 
ordinances of Recession passed by these States respectively, and 
who were instructed also, to invite the co-operation of this con- 
vention in forming a Southern Confederacy. The commission 
issued by the Governor of South Carolina, was dated on the 1st 
day of January, A. D. 1861, and in the " eighty-fifth year of the 
sovereignty and independence" of that State. The intense se- 
cessioiiism of South Carolinians cropped out thus, as usual, and 
with the other appliances, brought to bear at this convention, 
had a marked efiect upon public sentiment in Arkansas. 

An ordinance was passed and approved, however, providing 
for holding an election in the State, on the 5th day of Auo-ust, 
1861, at which the sense of the people was to be taken upon the 
question of " co-operation " or " secession ;" and just before the 
adjournment of the convention, another ordinance was adopted, 
providing, that should an exigency arise, between the passage of 
the ordinance first referred to, and the 19th day of Auo-ust 
1861 (when, by the terms of the adjournment, the convention 
was to re-assemble), for its earlier convocation, it could, by pro- 
clamation, or otherwise, be re-convened by the President 
thereof. 

A few weeks later occurred the attack on Fort Sumter, and 
President Lincoln's call for 75,000 men. The "exigency" was 
now considered to have arisen ; coercion was the cry of avowed 
rebels and timorous Union men, and the Hon. David Walker 



10 

president of tlie convention, and a citizen of tliis county, called 
the convention for the 6th of Maj. 

The proceedings of this body, fellow citizens, I do not pro- 
pose to recall. The country knows that on that day the State of 
Arkansas assumed to secede from the Union, and you know that 
that act was the " direful spring " of all your woes. The ques- 
tion of " co-operation " or " secession " was never submitted to 
the people, and the Summer of 1861, as elsewhere in the United 
States, passed away amid the din of arms. 

By the 1st of November, Arkansas had sent nearly 20,000 
men into the rebel army. The Union forces had been checked 
at Bull Run and Wilson Creek, and quite generally throughout 
the State the enthusiasm of tlie people ran high in behalf of 
the new-born Confederacy. The beliefs of many, nevertheless, 
were purely the creatm'es of the hour, and they were not anima- 
ted by a deadly and persistent hostility to the Federal Govern- 
ment. Not so with their leaders, civil as well as military. The 
rebellion was the denouement of a plot they had been maturing 
for years. The ghost of Callioun had appeared with its spectral 
beckonings, and they followed it as Hamlet his father's, eager, 
persistent, mad. The successes of the first year of the war 
were the text of a thousand sermons, and from a few dearly- 
bought victories were drawn inferences the most extravagant. 

Henry M. Rector, tlien Governor of this State, was espe- 
cially inclined to jubilation, and perhaps exceeded all other 
officials in the Confederacy in the peculiarly exultant character 
of his public utterances. In a message to the General Assem- 
bly, called together in extra session in November, 1861, he 
expatiates as follows : " To our gallant sons and countrymen 
who survive the bloody fields of Manassas and Springfield, the 
country owes its gratitude. The victory at Springfield aroused 
the drooping spu'its of our friends in Missouri, and emboldened 



11 

tliem for tne brilliant jacliievement at Lexington. Tlie tide of 
war still sets strongly against tlie vandal forces, and with the 
aid of Providence, we will drive them into the current of the 
Mississijypi, whose turbid waters may serve to hide them from 
the vengeance of an o^ppressed and outraged people.'''' 

Alas ! the vanity of rebel predictions. The Father of Wa- 
ters still goes " unvexed to the sea." The " tide of war " has 
been strangely perverse, and the " vandal forces " have shown a 
very decided aversion to making the acquaintance of the turbid 
waters of the Mississippi under the humiliating circumstances 
predicted. 

But not alone in malediction of this description did this 
valiant Governor indulge. He had a wonderful insight into the 
future, and made predictions with the ease of the prophets of 
old. Notwithstanding the immediate pressure of war on a gi- 
gantic scale, " the axe-helves and painted buckets " of Massa- 
chusetts had transferred their allegiance to Arkansas, and the 
busy hum of mechanical industry, shut out from " Yankee 
cunning and device," was inducing one of the most desirable 
results that could flow from a separate nationality — encourage- 
ment to men of small means, mechanics, artisans, and others, 
who earn their bread in the sweat of their brows. Nay more, 
this result, according to the Governor, was induced much sooner 
by " Mr. Lincoln's Blockade, than it could have been without 
it ; " " and so soon," he further says, " as the bitter fruits of expe- 
rience shall induce them (the Yankees) to open the channels of 
international commerce, a discriminating tariff will turn the 
bows of their steamers as effectually as a ten-inch columbiad. 
All in all — our liberties won — the era of 1861, is as much a 
blessing to tlie South, as was that of Seventy-Six to the 
Colonies." 

Thus much for the material prosperity of Arkansas, as seen 



12 

through the medium of a disloyal State paper. THe alaniiing 
character of the contest, would still present itself. Banquo's 
ghost was not half so obtrusive, and while the ides of this No- 
vember were setting in, the clouds of war were slowlj darken- 
ing. " Manassas and Springfield" had borne no fruits, and the 
necessity for forcing every fighting man into the ranks, be- 
came daily more imperative. 

On this subject, also. Governor Rector enlarges thus : " A 
sacred obligation rests upon every able-bodied man to assist in 
defending his coimtry, when his services are required. If he 
believes the cause of the South is an unjust one, he ought to 
emigrate. If he is too cowardly to take up arms to defend his 
country, he ought to pray God to hill himy 

Alas! the perverseness of the invocations of Union men! 
They neither prayed God to kill them, nor did they bow before 
tliis Moloch of public sentiment. If moral courage be coward- 
ice, according to this trenchant defender of a wide-spreading 
usurpation, then indeed were Union men craven ; if the fact 
that they were still unreconciled to the attempted secession of 
the State was treasonable, then surely were they enemies of 
the Confederacy. They were not " too cowardly to take up 
arms ■ to defend their coimtry," but they understood the term 
very differently from Henry M. Rector. It had with them no 
synonym in the vaunted plu*ase " A Southern Confederacy," 
but all its honors, triumphs, and glories, were wreathed about 
the starry old banner, on whose ample folds they had inscribed 
those words, possessing now a deeper significance than ever, — 
" The Union, the Constitution, and the Laws." 

But neither gubernatorial bluster, nor the ire of newspapers, 
could awe them longer, especially in this section of the State, 
and in silence, but resolutely, they prepared for the contest. 
The air had hardly ceased to throb with the pulsations of Forts 



13 



Henry and Donelsob, when around the little old Tavern on 
Pea Ridge centered the wrath of contending armies, and the 
smoke of battle had scarcely cleared away, when from the hills 
and the valleys, the caves and the woods, came forth in rags and 
in sorrow the Union men of Arkansas. 

I remember well their first appearance at Springfield. I 
was a stranger to them then, and I wondered at that constancy 
to the Government of their Fathers, which had caused them to 
suffer so much. 

It was my fortune at this time, through the kindness of Col. 
Harrison, to become connected with the first organized regi 
ment of Arkansas Volunteers in the Union army. 

On the 10th of July, 1862, I entered on duty, and, as many 
before me will remember, the first battalion, the only one then 
mustered, participated that afternoon in a brigade review. 
"With me, fellow-citizens, this was a day never to be forgotten. 
At 10 o'clock in the morning I first saw in line my future com- 
rades in arms, and the most of them for the first time under any 
circumstances, and as I looked along their front, rough with the 
travail of the forest, un uniformed and unarmed, yet orderly and 
attentive, I thought of the dark days of the Revolution, of Long 
Island, and Yalley Forge, and I silently admired that firmness 
of purpose, that devotion to yonder flag, which, in spite of the 
relentless persecution of misguided men, was so firm and so 
hopeful. 

We were assigned to a position in the right wing of the bri- 
gade, near the head of the line, and I felt a strange pride in 
marching those undisciplined men to the field, where many of 
the heroes of the old army of the Southwest stood ready to receive 
them. 

There were the strong and the weak, the young and the 
old, the sick and the well, yet on they tramped, not altogether 



14 

in time witli the inspiring tones of drum' and fife, but with 
hearts attuned to that nobler music, which in war and peace, 
in thrift and adversity, animates the loyal men of the nation, 
and throws around the Ark of our Country's Covenant, the in- 
spiring presence of a Divine sanction. 

•To Brig.-Gen. E. B. Brown, then commanding the District 
of Southwestern Missouri, let all honor be accorded for the en- 
couragement he gave to those struggling loyalists from a rebellious 
State. Unhke some others, he did not regard their entrance 
within the Federal lines with distrust. The burning of a man's 
house, by an enemy of the Government, is very poor proof of 
the disloyalty of its owner. Walking hundreds of miles through 
woods and ravines, never touching a highway but to cross it, 
lying concealed by day, and following the north star by night 
to avoid capture by rebels, will never convict a man of treason ; 
and General Brown had the good sense and discernment to see 
that the patience, zeal, and endurance of North westei*n Arkansas 
deserved encouragement. 

And now, fellow-citizens, beai* with me wliUe I allude 
briefly to the various regiments the State has sent into the 
service. 

The First Cavaliy was organized, as the most of you are 
aware, in the spring and summer of 1862, and I shall take occa- 
sion to say now and here, that great credit is due to Col. Har- 
rison for his indefatigable exertions in its behalf, and to the 
Hon. John S. Phelps, of Missouri, for his labors at Washington, 
resulting in the issuance, by the War Department, of a special 
order for the raising of this regiment. 

Following the battle of Prairie Grove, and the occupation of 
Fayetteville by the Union forces, the First Infantry and First Bat- 
tery were raised, and in the autumn and winter of 1863, the Second 
and Thu-d Cavalry, and the Second Infantry. Recruiting for the 



15 

Fourth Cavalry began in 1864, but its organization was not com- 
pleted until early in the present year. The raising of other 
regiments has been undertaken, but the men enlisted were sub- 
sequently consolidated with existing commands or have left the 
service. 

Into greater detail, historically, I will not enter, save to say, 
that the gentlemen — some from the State, others from the 
N^ortli — entrusted with the organization of these various com- 
mands, are entitled to great credit for their zeal and suc- 
cess in so materially giving form and effectiveness to the loyalty 
of the State. My relation to its troops has been, and still is, 
such, that I would hardly be expected to speak of their conduct 
in those terms of praise that would more properly come from 
some other person, and yet neither inclination nor duty should 
allow me, in this hour of National joy to pass entirely, without 
comment, their bearing under circumstances of trial and suffer- 
ing that the soldiers from the Northern States have not been 
compelled to undergo. 

They were the neighbors, the relatives of rebels. They 
saw the wealth, the talent, the industry of the State go 
to a great extent into the rebellion. While civilians they 
had no leaders, and of consequence no organization. Like 
the Earth when God spake it into existence, they were polit- 
ically " without form, and void," and darkness was indeed 
upon the face of the Deep ; but the spirit of the Lord moved 
at length upon the waters, and the dawn of a bright and 
hopeful day now broke in upon their sufferings and trials. 
They found men willing to take them by the hand, and, 
making common cause, go forth into a scene of strife, 
which, from the very nature of the case, was one of peculiar 
peril. Loyal Arkansians were the especial aversion of the dis- 
loyal citizens of the State, and they were subjected to every 



16 

indignity that the most bitter hate could devise. The oppro- 
brious epithet " tory " was sounded in their ears. They were 
the victims of the most relentless persecution in every form, 
and when at last, to defend their altars and their fires, they 
entered the service of their Government, it was the last hope of 
a fearfully harassed but not a despondent people. They had 
discerned a glimmer of light in the troubled present, and 
through it caught the glimpse of a glorious future, the 
shadowy temple of a new nation, and they struggled toward it 
with all the eagerness and enthusiasm of the pilgrim in that 
beautiful allegorical representation of the voyage of life, when 
lookin<r forward from the frail bark that bears him on, he sees 
the pearly gates of the New Jerusalem and almost hears the 
angelic music of its eternal inhabitants. 

Nor were their longings vain. They soon became intensely 
practical, and before the frosts of autumn had mellowed the 
forests, which they had left in the fullness of their early ver- 
dure, the First Cavalry were demonstrating southward from 
Springfield, and returning with an interest twice compounded, 
those blows that had severed them from home and happiness, 
fireside and family. As time rolled on, the remarkable events 
of this extraordinary war kept even pace with it, and the pro- 
gress of the Nation's arms. East and West, gave added stimu- 
lus to this accession to national strength. The Union men of 
Arkansas, in increasing numbers, thronged into Missouri and 
gathered about military posts. The organization of one regi- 
ment followed another ; Prairie Grove gave in its contribution. 
The occupation of Little Rock, and Fort Smith theirs, and soon 
the high hopes of the people took form and shape in the re- 
construction of a State Government. 

To the origin and growth of this movement, fellow-citizens, 
I now desii'e to call yom* attention. On the re-occupation of 



lY 

Northwestern Arkansas by the Army of the Frontier, in De- 
cember, 1862, large and very encouraging mass meetings were 
held here and at Hnntsville, as many of yon will remember, 
the people showing a most earnest desire for a restoration ot 
their old relations to the Union. Not long afterwards, similar 
meetings were held at Helena, and to go back a moment to the 
summer of 18G2, the march of General Curtis's army from Pea 
Ridge to the Mississippi, was the occasion for enthusiastic 
demonstrations of loyalty, especially at Batesville, in the 
northern central portion of the State, where hundreds of her 
citizens tiled into the TTnion ranks. 

October 30th, 1863, the people moved again at Fort Smith, 
and in a manner well known in this community. At the meet- 
ing then held the vigorous prosecution of the war was urged ; 
the course of the Administration in their eiforts to suppress the 
late rebellion approved ; the repeal of all laws sanctioning 
Slavery proposed, and a convention for the purpose of re-organ- 
izing the State Government recommended. Col. James M. 
Johnson, First Arkansas Infantry, was nominated to represent 
Western Arkansas in Congress, and shorth^ afterwards elected. 
The validity of this election was subsequently recognized in 
the schedule forming part of the new Constitution of the State, 
yet to obviate any objections that might possibly be urged 
thereto, it was deemed ad\dsable that a second election should 
take place when the new Constitution of tlie State was to be 
voted upon by the people. This was accordingly done, and 
Col. Johnson was again elected. 

All these, and many other manifestations in fact, of the 
popular will took place, it will be observed, prior to the issuance 
of the President's Proclamation, providing for the re-organiza- 
tion of loyal governments in the rebellious States, and when tlie 
2 



18 

people had no intimation of the course he afterwards saw fit to 
pursue. 

On the 20th day of January, 1864, President Lincoln ad- 
dressed Major-General Steele, then commanding the depart- 
ment of Arkansas, upon the subject of State organization, 
directing him, in response to sundry citizens of Arkansas, to 
order an election for the 28th t)f March then next ensuing, to be 
held at the usual places in the State, or all such as voters might 
attend for that purpose, at which (the election), and thencefor- 
ward, it was to be assumed that the Constitution and Laws of 
the State, as before the rebellion, were in fiill force, except 
that the fonwer should be so modified, as to declare that there 
should be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except in 
the punishment of crime, whereof the party should have been 
convicted ; that all persons qualified by said Constitution and 
Laws, and taking the oath presented in the President's procla- 
mation of December 8th, 1863, either before or at the election, 
and none others, should be voters ; that judges and clerks shoukl 
make returns to the Secretary of State; tliat in all other re- 
spects this election should be conducted according to the said 
Constitution and Laws, and that when, on the receipt of said 
returns, it sliould appear that 5,406 votes had been cast (one- 
tenth of the electoral vote of I860), these votes were to be re- 
ceived, and on the appearing at Little Rock, of the persons 
ascertained to be elected thereby, and taking an oatli to sup- 
port the Constitution of the United States, and the said modi- 
fied Constitution of the State of Arkansas, they w^ere to be 
dechired (jualified and empowered to enter immediately upon 
tlio dis<;harge of the duties of thuir respective ofiices. The 
time for holding this election was subsequently changed to the 
14tli, ir)tli, and 16th days of ^Farcli, Avlion it was lield as gener- 



19 

ally throughout the State, as the condition of the country 
would allow. 

The policy of the " ten per cent, system " as it has been in- 
vidiously called, in the re-construction of State Governments, 
has been severely attacked, but whether premature or not, it is 
now too late to enquire. It was obviously important as early as 
the issuance of the President's proclamation of December 8th, 
1863, bearing in part upon this subject, that all the encourage- 
ment possible should be given to the struggling loyalists of the 
rebellious States, and the progress of the national arms was 
in fact such as to warrant an attempt to restore civil law. 

Especially was this true in Arkansas, and when the an- 
nouncement came that an election was to be held||it was re- 
ceived with general joy. On the days of March last alluded 
to, the election was held, and 12,177 votes were cast for the 
present free Constitution of the State, and only 226 against it. 
Members of a Legislatm-e were elected from 46 of the 54 
counties of the State, and in many instances, county organiza- 
tions were perfected. Though military forces were stationed 
here and there throughout the State, the action of the people 
was free and unrestrained, especially in Northwestern Arkansas, 
where, in many precincts, the people assembled together as in 
time of peace. An occasional constituency was composed of 
citizens of a county, temporarily out of it for the simple reason 
that their loyalty had rendered it impossible for them to remain 
at home, but their intention was honest, their right to act un- 
doubted, and it were better thus by far, than that there should 
have been no re-construction at all. The loyal citizens of the 
State participated almost universally in this election, and no 
sane man will insist that those in arms against the Government, 
or in any manner giving aid and comfort to the rebellion, 
should also have been permitted to vote. The hostility of the bal- 



20 

lot-box was not to be added to that of the field or the council 
chamber, and the doubtful patriotism of non-combatants within 
the rebel lines, who had been temporizing more or less for three 
years, the loyal citizens of the State were under no obligations 
to consult. They, nevertheless, threw wide the polls to all who 
availed themselves of the President's amnesty, and evinced no 
malicious disposition to enquire into the antecedents of those 
Avho did so. The Legislature shortly assembled at Little Kock, 
and on the 18th of April, 1S()4, the Hon. Isaac Murphy, of 
Madison County, Gcjvernor elect, Avas inaugurated. And thus 
the new State organism began the exercise of its functions. 
It was indeed the Government of a fractional part of the people 
of ArkanSis — one-fourth of tlie electors of 1860 — but this re- 
bellion has played sad havoc with whole numbers, and the great 
fjuestion of re-construction cannot l)e settled upon the basis of 
the census of five years gone. The loyal people of a rebellious 
State, be their number great or small, are the appropriate custo- 
dians of political poAver, 

They are the State, and around them should gather the ele- 
ments of social and material growth, as one by one they spring 
up from battle-fields and crop out of confusion. Nor should 
these States be retained in a condition of pupilage until their 
old citizens, who followed the false fires of secession, shall re- 
turn and submit to the new order of things. The sacrifices, the 
constancy, the heroism of the Union men of the South are en- 
titled to encouragement not only, but reward. They are the 
germ of a new development — a new power, and one which to 
grow well must grow by accretion. 

In our own State, fellow-citizens, 12,000 of these men have 
ordained and established an Anti-Slavery Constitution, and they 
will be abundantly able, Avith the additional strength that time 
and circumstance are giving them, to maintain it. It would be 



21 



idle, nevertheless, to say that they have met with no discourage 
ments. 

Why Congress has failed to recognize our organization, it 
would be tedious to explain, and therefore I will simply say, 
that while recognition lias not taken place, no adverse action 
has been had, and we have strong reasons for believing tlia 
the 39th Congress will do us that justice which we failed to 
obtain from the 38th. 

But whether recognized or not, we do not propose to fold 
our arms and await the issue of events at Washington, David 
Crockett's mantle fell sufRciently near Arkansas to enable us to 
catch it up, and knowing we are right, throw it about us' and 
" go ahead." The problem of capacity for self-government does not 
necessarily require for its solution the interposition of Congres- 
sional aid, but of course all are anxious for the tim^when rep- 
resentation in Congress will be permitted. But tlie future 
aside," there is work to be done now, and the State authorities 
and the people are doing it. In April last, for the third time 
since the new Government was set in motion, the Legislature met 
entirely at their own expense, and ratified imanimously the pro- 
posed amendment to the Constitution of the United States. A short 
time prior to this event, such a militia system as the condition 
of the State seemed to require, and of which its circumstances 
would admit, was created by Major-General Reynolds, com- 
manding the Department of Arkansas, and Governor Murj)hy, 
acting in concert, the latter having been for some months en- 
couraging the plan of colonization, and directing the attention 
of different neighborhoods to this method of self-protection. 

In character, it was two-fold — agricultural and military — 
those who adopted it being expected to engage principally in 
farming and other industrial pursuits, and to fight only when 
necessary for the defense of their inmiediate neighborhoods. 



95 



The plan was substantially colonization, and in this section of 
the State, let me say, that nnder the wise management of Col- 
onel Harrison, you, to some extent, anticipated the joint action 
at Little Rock, and prior to the issuance of regular Commissions, 
were making flattering progress in restoring peace and quiet to 
Northwestern Arkansas. Fortunately the same spirit now pre- 
vails very generally throughout the State, and men are awaking 
from four yeai-s of rebellion, anarchy and bloodshed, to hold 
the plough and swing the scythe. 

Citizens who have been exiles from their homes for the last 
three years, are moving southward from " the line of the Ar- 
kansas," and counties that have never yet seen a Federal soldier 
in uniform, will only see him now as a State militiaman. The 
system is spreading, and like the banyan tree, di'opping its 
branches to the ground, is binding the extremities of the State 
to the centi'e, and taking root in a soil from which it is fondly 
hoped the last trace of secession will speedily be withcb'awn. 

Nearly every county in the State has its organization, and 
civil law, as if eager to atone for the disastrous silence of the 
last four years, is keeping even pace with the militia movement. 
Sherifis and constables are resuming their functions. Courts and 
juries are emerging from social disorder, and that trade which 
is born of hazard, and thrives on the calamities of a people, is 
being succeeded by a wider diffusion and reduced prices. 

Arkansas, fellow-citizens, is in the travail of a new birth. 
Four years of war and outrage, rapine and murder, have just 
passed into history. That peculiar form of civilization which 
results from the ownership of labor by capital, is now a dead 
type. The negro is no longer a chattel. The inexorable logic 
of events has decreed his freedom. The proclamation of eman- 
cipation, fulminated as a war measure, will be adhered to as 
one of the strong bulwarks of peace. The year of jubilee has 



23 

indeed come, but there is no millennium of listless ease in store 
for the colored race. They must learn to work for themselves, 
and learn at once. The commissariat will very soon cease its 
stomachic charities. The purlieus of camps will no longer 
afford them shelter and raiment. Under the wise and benefi- 
cent management of the Freedman's Bureau, thousands are 
already self-snstaining, and the great problem " what shall be 
done with the negroes ? " is rapidly solving itself. Of the araiy 
they are an honorable and important part. Their discipline is 
superior, their valor unquestionable, and by their general con- 
duct under arms, they have fairly earned the nation's respect. 
Still the course to be pursued towards tliem in matters civil and 
political, is not free from perplexity. Their freedom — a price- 
less boon — has already been secured, but to follow this with 
hasty and indiscriminate legislation, would be neither politic 
nor wise. 

Rights of person and property should be guaranteed, but 
the question of suffrage, the treatment of which each State re- 
serves to itself, should be approached with caution. Revolu- 
tions beget great changes, and not infrequently the movers in 
them, by intemperate action, defeat tlie cause they labor to 
subserve. The fruits of victory cannot all be gathered in a day< 
Passions must be allowed to cool, prejudices to vanish, and in 
this great transition period of American life, civil, social and 
political, the sure advances must be made one by one. Errors 
in existing laws are no excuse for their repetition, and suffrage 
to the negro, whatever it may have been, or now is, to the 
white man, should be made to depend upon his conduct and in- 
telligence, conferring it first upon the soldier. But I drop a 
question not of paramomit importance, at least, in this section of 
the State. In Northwestern Arkansas there are other interests 
to consider, and other persons to care for. War, in its deso- 



latiiig march, has swept again and again tlu'ougli Fayette^alle ; 
tlie torch and the axe have scarred the country for miles 
around ; a hii-ge proportion of those before me have, at one 
time or another during this most iniquitous rebellion, been com- 
pelled to leave their homes, and now, when it has been crushed, 
and the glad songs of peace are echoing over the hills, it is 
eminently proper that those who are or are to become citizens 
of the State, should survey well the field of their future opera- 
tions. 

A new era of light, of joy, of hope, is dawning upon the 
Commonwealth. The old order of tilings is dead. The inspir- 
injr agencies of a more eidia-litened civilization have begun their 
work. The depressing influence of chattel Slavery upon the in- 
dustry of the State — apologize for it as men Avill^ias been 
swept away by the shock of armies. The ploAv, the loom, and 
the spindle will have an added dignity. The mechanic and the 
laborer will, to no trifling extent, leave New England, great as 
she has become in the arts of peace, for the more genial clime 
and tlie higher wages of the South. Factories will foll(»w tlie 
denumd for their worknumship. Your streams will be bridged 
where fords have been thouglit sufficient. The extraordinary 
mineral wealth of the State will be developed ; the great pro- 
ductiveness of its vsdley lands will invite a population hitherto 
unknown ; the hot springs southwest of Little Rock, the Ameri- 
can pool of Bethesda, will attract that attention which their 
marvelous properties so eminently deserve, and tlie pear, the 
peach and the grape will vie Avith each other in the variety of 
their richness, and tlie luxurianci' of their growth. 

This, fellow-citizens, is no fancy sketch. The dawn of the 
reality is even now breaking. The colonization system so suc- 
cessfully prosecuted in this section of the State, is imparting a 
new energy to the people, and the apprehension of starvation 



25 

having been removed, the ravages of war will soon disappear. 
The same cheering indications are seen in other portions of the 
State. Law and order are superseding anarchy and confusion 
and soon within every county, justice will sit enthroned, and the 
majesty of her presence will secure the obedience of the people. 
Those retm-ning inhabitants who have been in rebellion 
and now desire to become good citizens of the United States 
Government, should be received fraternally. "With malice 
towards none, with charity for all," let us prosecute the great 
work of re-construction, yet remembering always, that the 
sufferings, the trials, and the claims of those who have been 
thoroughly and persistently loyal, entitle them to a precedence 
in this behalf that should not be overlooked. 

President Johnson's proclamation of amnesty and pardon is 
acceptable to the nation. While it is severe it is just, while re- 
stricted, generous, and even those within the excepted classes 
cannot complain of its terms. They staked their all upon the 
success of the rebellion, lives, fortunes and sacred honor, and if 
they do not ultimately go down as it has gone, they must attrib- 
ute their safety to the clemency of the Executive of the United 
States. 

But let the dead bury the dead. The American nation 
must now be especially intent upon the future. The war is 
over. The Armies of the Potomac, the Tennessee, and of 
Georgia, have marched northward through Kichmond. " lo 
Triumphe " has been sung, and the vine and the fig-tree are 
now dancing before the grim-visaged warriors, who but yester- 
day tramped through the streets of Washington, 

But, oh ! the sacrifice. The slain in battle ; the sick and 
wounded in hospital ; the starved and dying at Salisbury and 
Anderson ville, and the nameless graves that followed them ; the 
dead heroes who strew the ground from the Potomac to New 



26 



Orleans, and above all, that overwhelming calamity, a mur- 
dered President, tell in saddest tones the great tribulation 
through which we have passed. Nearly the last act of rebel- 
lion, it overshadows them all in atrocity, and was most fearfully 
ill-timed. Had it taken place even six months earlier there 
would not have been wanting in the vaunted Confederacy apol- 
ogists for its enormity, but occm*ing when it did, it shocked the 
sensibilities of men of honor the world over, and has covered 
the name of John Wilkes Booth with everlasting infamy and 
disgrace. 

Yet the body alone is dead. The spirit that informed it 
can never die, and while men have memories, and the earth is 
habitable, the " Illinois Lawyer " will be remembered as the 
controlling mind in an unparalleled crisis; a great Nation's 
hope in her severest trial, and the world's exemplar in all that 
is patient, self-sacrificing and patriotic ; 

" From fame-leaf and angel-leaf, 
From monument and urn, 
The sad of Earth, the glad of Heaven, 
His tragic fate shall learn ; 
And on fame-leaf and angel-leaf 
His name shall ever burn. " 

A moment now with the living and I have done. That 
arch-traitor, Jefterson Davis, has at last been caught in the 
meshes of his own folly, and if justice still dwells in her 
chosen habitation, he will expiate his crimes with his hfe. The 
head and front of a gigantic rebellion, whose astounding 
rashness stands out unequaled in the history of wars, he should 
be made an abiding example of punitive law. Clemency to 
some is only commendable in the light of punishment to others. 
The same Heavens that drop the " gentle dew " of mercy, 
thunder forth the wrath of an avenging God, and the adminis- 



27 

tration of hnraan aflfairs would be worse than senseless, if the 
force of a law is to be measured by the scope of a pardon. 

The world differ in the views held of this rebellion. Eussia 
has been true to us from the beginning, and the instincts of the 
continental masses generally have led them to the warm 
espousal of the cause of the Government. But not so the 
crowned heads of France and England, who, with all their 
neutrality, fed the baleful fires of treason, and turned a com- 
paratively deaf ear to the protestations of our representatives 
abroad, at least until the fortunes of the " Confederacy " were 
past recuperation. Good faith is public as well as private, and 
the time may come when the royal author of the " History 
of Juhus Csesar," and " Victana Begnans " will regret the 
hollowness of their fraternity, and their poor estimate of our 
resources. 

The strength of the American Nation has indeed been 
sorely tried. It has passed through the " ordeal of fire," and 
the " baptism of blood," but to-day is informed with a more 
vigorous life than the past was able to secure. The enormous 
debt even, incurred by the war, is by no means destructive of 
national credit. We owe ourselves mainly, and it is for the people 
to say when the obligation shall be canceled. Science and art, 
trade and industry, will gather additional strength. The waste 
places of the South will be made glad with intelligent labor. 
The passions and the prejudices of the time will pass away, 
and of the Nation will be spoken the olden prophecy : " The 
glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee ; the fii- tree, the pine 
tree and the box together to beautify the place of my sanc- 
tuary ; and I will make the place of my feet glorious. The 
sons also of them that afflicted thee shall come bending unto 
thee; and all they that despised thee shall bow themselves 
down at the soles of thy feet, and they shall call thee the city 
of the Lord, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel." 



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